Redefining Success in Light of the Assignment

How do you define success? Is it financial? Family? Creative or business achievements? Or does it have to do with something else?

Tim Winders is a Performance Coach and author who specializes in helping Executive Teams and Entrepreneurial Leaders maximize their potential by looking beyond traditional “cookie-cutter” methods that often limit the creative process. A lifelong student, he thrives on helping people discover how to live outside of the box and walk out their unique God-given calling. In his own life, he has frequently taken the road less traveled, and found great satisfaction off the beaten path. As host of the SeekGoCreate podcast, Tim goes to the out of the way places to bring you people who redefine success and impact our world in remarkable ways as dreamers, movers, strategists, and connectors.

Tim's SeekGoCreate Podcast
@SeekGoCreate

Transcript

Kay Helm  00:00

How do you define success? Is it financial, family creative or business achievements? Or does it have to do with something else? I'm Kay Helm, and you are listening to the life and mission podcast episode 52. Our guest today is Tim Winders.

Kay Helm  00:22

Well, hey there, Tim, I, you know, I could say you're a coach, I could say you're an author, I could say you're a fellow podcaster I'd say you're a nomad. But I'm gonna just welcome you to the show and let you tell us more about who you are and what you do.

Tim  00:36

Sure, Kay, great to great to be here and be able to share with you, I am considered a performance coach is kind of the term I use for myself. I really like doing strategy. I like helping organizations and individuals grow. So that would kind of be in the coaching area, we can discuss that more in detail, but I'm also a podcast host. And I host the podcast Seek Go Create. I am, also I consider myself an author, I've just finished my first novel it is not published yet not released yet. But it is completed. And so that's exciting. And then always have to add in I'm I'm a, I'm a husband, father, and now my grandfather first time.

Tim  01:19

And then I actually throw in, throw in a little bit of an extra thing. I'm also a nomad, my wife and I travel live and work full time in our in our RV that we named Theo. So that's hopefully that's a little bit about me to give you a little flavor.

Kay Helm  01:34

Okay, let's start with the RV. Because I know everybody's curious about it. So if we don't start with that everybody's gonna be thinking about RV named Theo.

Tim  01:41

Let me get first of all, let me give people visual we're, we're, we're doing this with video so you can see it, but they may not be able to. I'm actually sitting in the passenger seat of the RV, we have a class A RV is right at 39 feet. And kind of the story goes just to give a little bit of a backdrop. 

We actually were essentially homeless in 2013. And traveling and and we were being sustained, the Lord was taking care of us. But it was a challenging time. We ended up going to the Bible school up in Colorado for a couple years 2015 to around ‘17 ish ‘18. And when we finished that up, my wife said, you know, we both agreed we should travel again, because we really enjoyed that it really raised our soul. And my wife was pressed been thinking about it. She came out one day. And she said later that it had taken her a couple days to muster up the courage to say this, but she said I think the Lord wants us to get an RV and live in an RV, and husbands who've been married for many years should learn this type tip. And that is not to give your first response. So I paused. I allowed you know my tongue and the Holy Spirit, the Lord everything to catch up with what my mind was doing. And that might be the most valuable tip that we give today. And it's okay I I just kind of paused and I said, Hmm. Okay, I hope that's the Lord telling you that because I can't spell RV. I don't know anything about RVs. And so anyway, this was in the spring of 2018. About a month and a half later, we owned this RV that we're in, we gutted it over a six week period of time, ripped almost everything out, rebuilt, it built our offices and everything. And then late 2018, early 2019 moved in, and it's been our home, everything we have own is pretty much here in the RV. And so that's the way we live. And now we actually believe with what's going on in the world. And all this happening. We may be well positioned for, for the type lifestyle that a lot of others might wish they could leave.

Kay Helm  03:58

Yeah, I mean, you can be at home and be anywhere you want to be.

Tim  04:03

Exactly right. We're about to be moving. We're in the Georgia area right now outside of Atlanta, where we got family and we're about to be easing West. And we'll pick and choose where we go based on I'll use this term over and over what nourishes our soul, we look for places that are nourishing to us. Or if we have some specific divine instruction that we need to go to a certain spot or location, we'll we'll do that we've got that ability to do it. I love it. 

Kay Helm  04:32

And I also have to ask how did the how's the RV named Theo?

Tim  04:35

Well, we, for those that have a do some study of some of the ancient texts, we'll call it. They know that the word theopolis is friend of God or God. It's a term for Theo, sort of word for God. So we travel with God in God at all times.

Kay Helm  04:53

Oh, I love it.

Tim  04:53

So that's the Oh, so theopolis is a little long and wordy. Theo's kind of short for Thea Plus with God and God, yeah, literally mean literally, I'm in God, literally, I am in the passenger seat in God, right now

Kay Helm  05:08

You're living and working in the RV, you're going anywhere you want to go, and what you do your business allows you to do that. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing in business.

Tim  05:19

Yeah, and as far as business goes, we're structured. Maybe others are structured this way to k, but we have a for profit. Business, that's it is a coaching business. And, and with that part of the business, I work with business teams, leadership teams, sea levels, and individuals solopreneurs I work with them in helping them reach whatever success means for them. And it can mean a lot of different things. I mean, truthfully, this this last year, as you know, depending on when people are listening to this, but 2020 has been we've done a lot of survival. You know, and, and we haven't done it done as much thrive as we would like to, but that's always a part of it, and growth. So that's what I do in the for profit arena. That's the way I like to say it, I don't always put this on my marketing material is that I reach down inside people or organizations and I pull out what God placed there at the beginning. And I help them manifest what's there. So that's really kind of my my mantra that I like to say. And so that's really what I've got structured in the for profit arena, I work with anywhere between a handful to 10 to 12 clients at any given time. And, and so that's that. 

And then we also have a family foundation is a 501c3, that's with our organization, our family. And I do the same thing with ministries and organizations that I do in for profit. In fact, it looks very, very similar. When you look at my schedule, I might have call that scheduled with one in this this arena for profit. And then the next call might be someone in the nonprofit, someone who heads a ministry or works in an organization works for an organization that that is advancing the kingdom is what our our, our term is that we use in that organization. So does that help that help? A little bit?

Kay Helm  07:15

Yeah, that does that does. So you can do that from from anywhere, as long as you've got a way to connect with the people you're talking to?

Tim  07:22

You know, we were cool. We were doing the zoom stuff before zoom was cool. You know, I've been doing it for years now. And so if I could get some good internet, which is not always the case, just so you know, I've been traveling since 2013. We assumed that in 2013 14, that you know what, we could get high speed good internet, wherever we go in the world. We spent some time in Australia, New Zealand and all that. Let me just tell you, that's not always a great assumption, right.

Kay Helm  07:51

I know a lot of the places I ended up No, that's not good.

Tim  07:56

Nope. And so we just unfortunately have to deal with it. So

Kay Helm  07:59

yeah, well, let's go a little deeper into the coaching area, because that's a you look around you see a lot of people are coaching. But I want to ask you two big questions we hear everybody needs a coach. Oh, but really does everybody need a coach? And and and why do people need a coach?

Tim  08:19

Well, I'll address I'll address the first question. And say that no, oddly enough, no, everyone doesn't need a coach. But everyone needs to be self aware. Every organization needs self awareness. And there's a I don't think this is scriptural, I could probably find it somewhere. But there's a term that I use all the time called, Thou shalt not fool thyself. It sounds like it should be in the Bible. It probably is. But that's maybe Timothy's version of it instead of the actual version. 

And so Kay, I think the real challenge that most of us have, especially first world I'm sure it's always been this way, is that it's very difficult to assess ourselves. It's very difficult to get ourselves back. It's very difficult to see to look in the mirror and really know what we're looking at because we don't really see inside we see a reflection is always seen when we look in a mirror. And so if someone is hyper self aware, if someone is extreme, has the extreme ability to look inside themselves and know what what makes them tick, to know where their thoughts wills, emotions come from, to be able to tap into the ultimate divine wisdom and operate exactly as the Lord would have them operate at all times. Then I would say they probably don't need a coach. They're probably good. 

Now, to follow that up. Okay. I would also have to say is that I have not met anyone that's that way. And, you know, even even people that would be You know, extreme leaders in positions of influence either in ministry or business or politics or whatever, I would say they need it worse, I would say they need someone that can check them, I could say they need someone that can help us watch our our egos and keep us from, you know, getting too full of ourselves and, and think too highly of ourselves. Because it's very easy to do that in the world we're in when all of a sudden you have people applauding you and telling you how great you are, when you've reached a level of influence. And you kind of need people to tell you, you know, you are except maybe you need to watch this. 

And so, Kay, the, the thing that I, I strongly believe is that we need people around us that can speak to us in a loving, truthful, sometimes corrective, sometimes encouraging, and uplifting way And ideally, in most environments, what we call that now as a coach, you know, in in other times, it could be you're being discipled you know, if it were 2000 years ago, and you know, me and you and 10 other people were sitting around the campfire with Jesus, that would have been probably the more ultimate, but currently we we don't have that physical ability, we can do it spiritually, but we don't have that physical ability. So, so I I am, I'm a strong proponent of someone that can help us with that self awareness.

Kay Helm  11:30

Yeah, that's good. I mean, everybody has blind spots, and we have them in different areas of our lives. So I can be really self aware in one area of my life and just utterly clueless in another. I was thinking, as you were talking about, you know, in the Bible, you've got, you know, King David, here, and God says, a man after my own heart, and yet, there's Nathan, who has to come and give sometimes he gives the direction like about building the temple, and yes, go build it. No, wait, don't build it. And, and, or when he has to bring correction. Know, as well. And we all knew, yeah. People, people who speak brother, we call them a coach, somebody has to be able to speak in our lives.

Tim  12:15

Yeah, I agree with that. Now, now also to follow up. I do think that some people may have, I hate to say the gene, because I don't necessarily, I actually have a strong belief that people can pivot, they can change, they could alter where they're headed. But I know for me, I was wired to coach teach train. From early on, both my parents were educators. From a very early age, I thought that I wanted to be a teacher and a coach. It was very pivotal. Remember, this K I, I, at some point, like in my mid to late high school career, somehow I found out how much money my parents made. And I, we don't pay teachers enough, I'll just say that right up front. But it caused me It caused me to realize that I wanted to make more money, I was really after a pursuit of money and financial gain. 

And so what I did was is I said, Hmm, I'm not going to be a high school or, you know, teacher coach, I'm going to become an engineer, I went to Georgia Tech, got a systems engineering Industrial Systems Engineering degree. But that coaching desire never left me and so even when I went into corporate even when I started my own companies, everything seemed to have a component, I would always migrate back to teaching even within small areas. But then also I I did things in larger areas, we had corporate training companies, I did team building and and ropes courses and and then every business we had, I would move into a teaching coaching training role. 

So I did think we have to be mindful of where we're steered, which doors open up for us to kind of know if that's, I don't like to use the word calling and a lot of people in ministry world we use the word calling, I think it I think it messes some of us up in church world. I like to use the word assignment, I just knew my assignment was to reach down inside people and pull out what God had placed there as best we could. And so that's, that's a sidebar, I think, to the coaching is that, you know, some people are possibly wired to do it a little bit more than others.

Kay Helm  14:29

And I, I like that word assignment because I think sometimes we we get so stuck on calling and I've got a couple episodes earlier this year on on calling. But thinking about it in terms of calling seems so permanent, and so final and so one thing.

Tim  14:47

Yes. Yeah, you're exactly right. And that's what bothers me about it. I spent two years in Bible school I've been around church folk, we call that in the South American church folk for now. 30 plus years. There's there's this mindset of I'm trying to find my calling, trying to find a calling. And then once they get their calling they're trying to walk in. They're calling they're trying to stay in. They're calling they're trying to get. They're trying to get some financial reward for doing their calling. And I just I the word it just kept bothering me. I've run across, I've run across very few people that seemed to be at peace. with whatever it is that word is, it's a little bit churchy for me. 

So I just actually, I actually ask the Lord on a daily basis, Lord, what's my assignment today? What is my assignment this minute, my assignment right now is for you not to have this conversation. And that only it also keeps me focused and not thinking too far ahead too far back. And I've got some bigger assignments that he has to be working on with writing some books and podcasts and those things. But I also know that because of the way we live, and the way I am, that if I wake up tomorrow, and I'm spending my quiet time with him, and he says, go here, or do this or come to Virginia or something like that, I've got ways that I check that to make sure I'm hearing well, and my wife helps you with that. And, but you know what, it could be that my assignment might change, you know, in military in battles in warfare. If people go down in battle, if things change, if the if the weather shifts, if you know, we're losing our advantage, the assignment might change, I might move from an offensive position to a defensive position, I might move from a, from an officer to someone carrying a gun with a bayonet running full speed at the enemy. Now, I need to be able to listen and hear instruction and my instruction comes from the commander.

Kay Helm  16:45

That's right. That's right. And we see in the Bible, God's saying, and as a, I'm doing a new thing did not perceive it. So when he's doing a new thing, we need to be able to go do the new thing. And I do I'd really like that assignment because it is day by day, moment by moment situation, not situational ethics, but situation, you know, what, what are we? What are we moving towards right now? seasons we think of, and we talked about seasons a lot in the church. But yeah, and that ability for that calling to do an air quotes there to look different at different times?

Tim  17:22

Well, one thing too, we kind of are all called to do love him. love others. Love self. That's a calling. You know, I did a long study with the Lord. You know, he said, How many things that I told you to seek first? And I went, I think I know, but I'll let me check. So I do my quick Bible search in Matthew 633. You know, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, His righteousness, and then all these things will be added. And the Lord reminded me over the course of 18 months, I studied every scripture, wrote it out, broke the words did word study on the Greek and, and, you know, the Lord showed me that I had been spending too much time pursuing things, the end of that verse, instead of Kingdom and righteousness. And I would, I would also venture to say that most of us in first world, we probably spend more time on the things that we do the kingdom. And so one thing about that Kay, though, is that we, in many of our democratized Republic's whatever we want to call it, we don't understand what a kingdom is. That's true. You know, we go vote, you know, and we have our say, and we have input, and we get to decide, and you know, what, in a kingdom, you don't get to. That's right. You are a servant, to the master, the king. And we don't understand that we think we're supposed so so really, all we do if we are in that kingdom, is we go to the master the king and we say, What do you want me to do today? Now if we run from them and try to hide and all that it's gonna be hard for us to get that instruction, that assignment. So we've got to have relationship and that's, I think, our our biggest calling,

Kay Helm  19:07

well, gee, I don't even know if I need to ask you the next question. I was gonna ask you

19:12

about 

Tim

Go, go, go!

Kay Helm  19:14

I was gonna ask you about success and how you define success? 

Tim  19:18

Well,it's a great lead in. Success to me is when I'm fulfilling the assignment that I've been given. Yeah. And, you know, I love I love talking about this, because, to me, this is the biggest challenge that we have in our culture, in our society, in church, not church, whatever. And that is defining success. And in fact, our sub mantra or sub title, whatever to our podcast is redefine success and leadership, business and ministry. Because I've done it a lot of ways. I mean, in 2008, we had three companies That in any way that you would define it would have been very successful would have been million dollar companies each. We owned over $15 million in real estate at that time. 

The other companies we had, we had a large coaching business, we had a large lead generation business. They were all doing seven figures, all three of those businesses were in the real estate arena. We live in a nice home golf course, success would have been the word that many people would have used to describe us at that time. Yeah. So okay, five years later, we were homeless living in a Honda van. All of that was gone. Wow. So where are we less successful then? than we were five years ago? My wife and I've had discussions about this. Yeah. We were We were walking more in our assignment. And what No, it was painful though. 

I could we can go into the details I'd rather not. But we've shown it was painful in the world we're in today to have you know, your children grown, tell them there's no home to come to, um, home to you know, your wife. And you know, the discussions that you can have as a couple when there's financial challenges, that's not good. But I'll tell you the the thing that my wife and I say is that while we wouldn't wish that on anyone, we're so thankful we went through all that, because it helped us get to this place that we're at now, we never would have come to this place that we could have the conversation, you probably wouldn't have wanted to converse with me 12 years ago, 13 years ago, maybe I don't know. But because I was I was a follower of Christ. Now in peace

Kay Helm  21:42

It's a hard season.

Tim  21:43

Yes, very, very, very difficult, a lot of shame a lot of so I've come to define, after all of that. experiencing what many in culture would say wow, that's successful, or that's not successful. I could say it has very little if anything to do with what's in your bank account. It has very little with anything to do with the quote unquote, possessions that you have your name on. And, and it really has very little to do with what most of the world system I call it, the Babylonian system would point to and say, those are the things the last part of Matthew 6:33 that you're using to define success. And success is defined in the first part of Matthew 633. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And of course, we are doing a word study on righteousness. Now I'm halfway into the 90 something verses on righteousness. And that's just understanding a position and connection that we have with the Father. That is success. That was a long answer, wasn't it?

Kay Helm  22:53

I love it. But, you know, we're often so simple and so fast to define success that we do miss the depth of really what God has for us. Yeah. And sometimes we have to go on that long, hard journey to have our eyes opened. See that?

Tim  23:15

Yeah, I wish I wish we would not have had to go on that journey. But it's difficult for me to imagine what it would have been like had we not had all of a sudden we would have had a miraculous restoration of our finances and stayed in our home and all of that I just, I wish all of us did not have to be broken to some extent before we came to that realization, but you know, even the Apostle Paul, you know, we every example we've got biblically shows that there is a brokenness that has to be gone through. I think going back to the question you asked earlier, the coach the self awareness, it would be excellent if we had someone that can help us not be so decimated by the brokenness. That's probably the value of a coach or someone who can speak into our lives some loving value of maybe how to recognize it sooner as opposed to later Yeah,

Kay Helm  24:22

that's it. You know, when you think about even like a sports coach, just watching them on the sidelines when the kicker misses the field goal or the you know, and he comes back hang in his his shoulders are drooped and his heads down and the coach comes and Pat's him on the back there's a time for the teaching there's a time for the encouragement there's a time for correction there's a time but that it's the walking with it's the I'm I'm here, I'm with you. We're together, we're gonna go go through that that's huge to have people whether you call them coaches or not, I taught my my two sons are grown. Now to have a personal board of advisors, or boulder board of directors that could just people who are for you, they're always for you. They don't have an agenda. But they'll speak truth. Yeah.

Tim  25:14

And and that can only happen. There's an underlying, I don't think I've always known this. But if there's not an unconditional, compassionate relationship, which that's love, by the way, then it is very difficult to have that relationship with people. There could be finances exchanged, it can be something that people pay for. But, you know, if, if you and I are in a relationship like that, and I don't, if I don't look for all the good, and I don't look, I mean, I'll see some things that we might need to adjust looks like, just like you would if you were working with me, but it's got to be in love. Because I if I don't have a true love, then I can't say some of the things that are very difficult to say, yes, it's got there's got to be there because then it will come across cross Stern, corrective and it could be corrective. I mean, we know that And anyway, that's also one thing in our culture that is getting more and more difficult for people to do. You know, there's there's a challenge and I think it's because we've we've attempted to remove true. You know, the true a got a love from the equation. And we want everything to be formulaic. We want it to be a structure a system, and I'm into structures and systems. I'm in as systems engineer, but But boy, you got to have some love and compassion with it. Yeah, yeah.

Kay Helm  26:44

I was listening to a sermon on a podcast, it was like it was an old, you know, I think it was from February, or I think it was preached even years ago, originally, but it was a Tim Keller sermon. And he was talking about the if you if you don't believe the corrective parts of the Bible, you can't believe the encouraging parts. And that and it basically is what you said that there's this love and desire for the best for the for the person and but you have to the relationship has to be there for any of it to work. Because if I don't believe that, what he says about what what's righteous and what isn't? Then I also, if I don't believe that, how can I possibly believe how fully completely loved I am?

Tim  27:38

Yeah, exactly. And then when you know how truly and completely loves you are, then you have the ability to do that with others. It's, I would say it's a vicious cycle. But it's actually a beautiful tapestry, that might be a better way of saying it. Because many would look at as a vicious cycle, okay, if I don't love myself, then it's hard for me to love others. If I don't love the Father, then I can't love myself, I can't see all that and it becomes a tough cycle. But what it really is, is it's a beautiful meshing together when we truly grasp it, yes, that we understand the father and what the Father wants for us. And what the Father wants for us is to truly love ourselves. And to see ourselves in the correct placement, the connection I use, I use connection, right, we are connected, we are reconnected with the Father, not necessarily because of what happened on the cross, because what happened on the cross, and the resurrection allowed us to be reconnected with the Father. 

And he showed us his love by doing that. And then what that does is it opens up the door for us to then pour that out to other people. Because we have that confidence. Now the challenge I think in the world is that a lot of people don't understand that reconnection to the Father. And that's probably where we are in society that if more people understood that, we've been talking about Christians too, by the way, I'm talking about people that go to church and things like that you need we all need that understanding that we probably can't totally grasp, because then that allows us to turn around and you know, we're not trying to do it with our own power not trying to do it with works. Yeah. Well, you're doing it with the overflow of his love for us.

Kay Helm  29:20

Yeah, yeah. And and it's like bearing fruit. You know, we talked about that a lot in the church, that's a part of a natural process that grows from the, the root from the roots on up and from absorbing, you know, what, what nutrients are there and all of those processes that that go into making that fruit but it's something that naturally, the tree doesn't try harder to produce the fruit.

Tim  29:46

It just does. It just exists. And if it's a withered up, tree, you know, it's not going to produce good fruit. That's why we're the branches of that tree. So we just allow ourselves to bear the fruit. That tree. That's right.

Kay Helm  30:02

That's right. Okay, let's let's um, look at kind of a daily, you know, I got calling, we've got assignment, we've got our folks alongside we have relationship with the Father, in our daily lives, what's a habit that everyone should cultivate?

Tim  30:20

This one seems simple, but it's the most challenging that most of us have. And it is quiet time, quiet time to listen, and think and I believe it's time with the father or study or scripture or journal, whatever it is. And, you know, we look for formulas. And it's really interesting. I had a, I had a meeting on Monday, of this week, a couple days ago, for those that may not know what day this is. But a few days ago, with, with an executive on one of the teams that I coach, my ideal situation from a business standpoint is to work with the entire leadership team of an organization and coach and work with them on an ongoing basis. 

And, and one of the the leaders kind of a level below the C team had kind of reached out and said, Hey, listen, I've heard you do things with leadership and, and things and this person reached out to me, Kay, and they, and this was in a business setting. And you know, we were talking and, and we're both engineers at base level, but also knew this person had a little bit of a spiritual background. And they really wanted to know, as they head into the tail end of this year, early part of next year, what could they do to be a better leader, to be better in their work environment? You know, they're a father. He's got young, young children, and we talked about some of the things related to that. And, you know, I don't know where it came from. 

But I said, there's one thing you can do, and that is spend quiet time spending time in prayer with the Lord. And he specifically said, what does that look like? And I said, it's different for everyone. For me, it's I've got to have a topic that I'm studying right now. It's righteousness. It was Kingdom of God for the longest. And it takes a long time I study scriptures, I go through every verse, and usually each day I do I do a study on that verse in a word studying, I write it out longhand in my journal, and, and then I spend quiet time with the Lord and I'll write down some things and then I'll draw a line. And usually for me, underneath that line is him speaking to me. And but that's me, said yours, yours could be spending time quiet, not writing anything. But in the world we're in today, okay. Coming through a pandemic, because depending on when people listen, we may still be in it. We we have gone through a lot of shaking, there's a reset that's going on. 

We all carry around these devices and computers that are more powerful than most of us knew from, you know, when we were younger, everything, everything is attempting to distract us from that one thing that is most important. And that is spending quiet time. So we could listen here, think and get our assignment. That is the most important thing that any of us can do. And a lot of people say, Well, I'll do mine later day I do it while I'm washing dishes. I do it going on a walk. Yeah, great. find what works for you. I've just found this for most people. 95%. I don't have data for that. But you know, whatever. 95% of the people. If they don't do it first thing in the day, it's not going to happen.

Kay Helm  33:38

I know that's true. Me. Absolutely. I often before I leave my room. If it's not done prior to that, it's it's hard. Yeah,

Tim  33:48

yeah. Yeah, we all we all know that if you if you pop open the phone and go to Facebook or Twitter or whatever your drug is that you that you go to or start checking news or anything like that. I mean, I noticed how poor my attitude was getting early on in the pandemic, you know, March, April, because I felt the need to know what was going on. I didn't, or I know what's going on already. I didn't need to hear people talking about what was going on.

Kay Helm  34:21

Yeah, yeah, you get so many voices, it just chatter, and it's distracting. I wanted to touch on a couple more thing. So we talked about it a little bit earlier, when you have business and ministry. I know sometimes we draw a line and we say well, this over here is business and This over here is ministry. And there seem like two different worlds, but maybe not.

Tim  34:48

Well, I don't see. Let me see how I can work this so that I'm

Tim  34:56

so that I show compassion and love with the way I say this I don't see a lot of scripture that says that full time ministry is the ultimate calling for people's lives. I didn't say anything against full time ministry. I didn't say anything against that. But I don't see that that is the ultimate. 

And in the world we're in today in most Christian church circles, there is the perception, sometimes it's more than a perception. Sometimes it's an outright statement, that there is nothing you can do that's more virtuous, better. God shines down on you more than being in and I'll say this, again, quote, unquote, full time ministry. And I will just say, I fully stand to be corrected when I, you know, meet with the Father, the ultimate, but I actually see that our, our goal is to find out what that assignment is. And many times it can look like a lot of different things. And we have come just in recent history, to define ministry and the way we currently define it, that I don't really see it in the, in the, I just have been studying the first and second chapter, you know, first and second Timothy recently, where Paul gives some instruction about deacons and things like that, and I'm reading them going, you know, what, this really doesn't line up with a lot of the ways we structured it in churches, and I'm not sure that we should use it as the guidebook that we try to, I think we're trying to make it fit what we really want to fit so. So an answer to your question, the bigger thing is, I can't separate them. 

And the reason I can't separate them is something that we talked about, I think, before we pushed record is I was actually saved and met my Savior, Jesus Christ, in a business setting. In 1991, someone got me into the Amway business, a multi level marketing business, and I was chasing after money, I was going after it. And, and and you know what, I actually went to a big Coliseum where people were there. And they had this meeting that was going on. And on Sunday morning, a guy got up and did a church service. And he said, Hey, if you're trying things and they're not working, you need to get Jesus in your heart. So you need to come on down on this floor of this Coliseum and I went down front with about nine or 10,000 other people. That's where I met you. So business. And ministry, to me is one in the same as we had our businesses and our coaching companies, I did the same thing. We had Sunday morning services, we had people come to the Lord, we had people get healed we had. 

And so I don't separate it. And I actually have to be careful not to get a little bit irritated. Because sometimes high performers will get saved, they'll go into church. And there's nothing wrong with this bottle, you use an example. They'll say that, oh, Tim, we're so glad you're here, you obviously are God that achieves and gets things done. But you know, you need to work your way up. So what we'd like for you to do is to serve in the parking lot, ministry. So here's a here's an orange vest, would you go out and wave a flashlight and help people Park I have no problem helping people Park cars. In fact, I would enjoy it thoroughly. 

But my example is that we're not looking at skills, talents, abilities, we we perceive that there's a pecking order. And I could just tell you, I feel very confident that we're going to find out there is no pecking order. And, and so I believe that many people that that are in full time, quote, unquote, ministry, most likely need to be doing some business, some work, some some writing or sharing and getting paid for it, so that it's not straining the giving. And then I also think that a lot of people in the business world, they need to be probably going out and feeding the, you know, feeding the hungry and ministering to the orphans and the widows, which is what we're all called to do. 

Kay Helm  39:03

And so probably all of us need to do a better job of stepping outside of the comfort zones that were in

and out of the silos that we've we've kind of built whether we built them as different segments of our own individual lives. Or segment, we have segments of society. Well, this is the church's role. This is government's role, and this is individual's role. And it's we arc is our serving, you know, yeah. And what does that look like and reimagine like you said, reset, I think was the word is used?

Tim  39:28

Yeah, in the world, we're in Kay, I think there's really going to be a reset. I think we were talking earlier about traditional missionaries.

Tim  39:36

I we've supported them to our foundation, and personally, we support them, and I love it when people go, go share the gospel. But for me, there's much more value with someone who goes to Europe or, you know, they go to Africa, whatever. And they actually do work to me, they interact with more people, than if they just go over there expect the money to flow from let's just say the US to them, and I I'm not saying throw that whole system out, I just think that systems about to be turned upside down. And there's going to be a forcing of doing things differently. Because it may not work anymore. You know, it may not be be working like it used to, I'm not sure that it was working extremely well before February of 2020. But I think starting in March of 2020, it really is going to be reset, and changed. And I think that people are going to need some skills are going to need to maybe one of the guys I know that does more ministry than anybody I know, went to Bible school with him. He could be standing up preaching, he can be overseas, he drives for Uber and Lyft. And he ministers to more people than I know, because he's out there interacting with the world.

Kay Helm  40:57

Mm hmm. I think to part of that structure that you're talking about with the way we do missions, is often when when people come back from the missions field, or when they're communicating from the missions field, say, you know, the fundraising newsletter, the search has a form they have to fill out, you know, it's how many people got saved, how many people got baptized, and it all looks like church ministry. Like, it's like, we have to replicate what we're doing here in this individual, church. And if it doesn't look like that, then it's not ministry, the ministry, 

I'm a part of - we do Mental Health Training, and we work with health care providers, we've trained in moms, traditional healers, and church leaders sometimes together, which is an awesome ministry opportunity. But it doesn't, you know, I go to fill out the form, and I'm like, there's no place for us here on this forum. I don't have a place to tell you what, what awesome things God is doing in these nations, because it doesn't look like this picture, that we have a ministry and I think a lot of missionaries already know that and are trying to figure out a way to communicate what needs to be communicated without, without offending the kind of the flow of funding, you know, and it's almost like this, you know, we talked about some some vicious cycles of expectations and assumptions.

Tim  42:33

Well, you know, another thing this is boy might be stepping in it here. Many times, it's difficult for us to listen in here, what our true assignment is, is when we're worried about where the financial provisions can come from. That's true. That's true. I mean, if we're sitting here trying to I'll use another strong word, and I apologize if we're trying to manipulate the money that comes into us. It is many times difficult to hear I've done it in business, I've done it and other things, that you're trying your best, and you do not want to offend. And you know what, that that can be a challenge if I don't want to say something to you, or you don't want to say it to me, because oh boy, that's where my money comes from, you know what I'm gonna go and say it right now, that's not where your financial provision comes from. Right? Because if you are walking in the assignment that you have in the kingdom, it is the king's responsibility to provide you provision to achieve and accomplish that assignment. 

Now, if that provision isn't coming, then possibly we need to really ask ourselves, are we in the assignment that He has for us? But but but tell him I'm doing the work of the Lord? are you really doing the work of the Lord? Are you doing the work of the church? There is a difference? Are you doing the work of the ministry? Are you doing things that sound good? Are you doing the things that are God? There's a difference. That's one of the reasons why we need people that can sometimes check us on that and and you know, in a non manipulative, non judgmental and also very compassionate way, say, Are you sure you're supposed to go to Africa? Are you confident? Why no, I'm called Africa. 

Okay, let's, let's talk it through. Make sure and, and Anyway, I'm not the one to say yes or no. I'm just saying dig a little deeper and make sure we're hearing and we've got people that are speaking into our lives because it is very easy. What we say at the beginning shall not fool ourselves. It is very easy to fake ourselves out. Yes, and you know, and you know, who helps with that. The enemy. You know, the enemy would really love for us to get slightly off track, if not entirely off track. And we've got a lot of that going on. I know I've had it in my life and I know other people probably, there's a lot of that. going on, I want to know my crystal clear assignment. And I want everyone that's listening to this, to gain their crystal clear assignment that the king has for them to perform in His Kingdom, minute by minute, day by day, because what I do know is that when people step into that, the provision, I'm not going to say money, I'm not gonna say houses, cars, or any of that stuff, the provision to achieve and accomplish that assignment will be poured out to them at the time that they need it. Without question,

Kay Helm  45:36

these are things that are worth examining. I think sometimes when we put something under the covering of faith, or something that we call faith, we're afraid to question anything about it, in it having to do with it around it. I did a speech at a conference a couple years ago called the gift of doubt. And it wasn't a wasn't a Christian message, so to speak. It was for business people. Yeah. But I believe that, like if there's, there's doubt if there's doubt in there, I'm not talking about you know, doubt with, you know, I don't believe in God anymore. So that I'm talking about that something doesn't fit. There's this little kind of niggly thing, that dissonance, whatever you want to call it. Okay, you got to pay attention to it.

Tim  46:25

Yeah, I mean, it could be that unction or Holy Spirit, I mean, sometimes it can be a little bit of fear, we just have to recognize it. And the good thing is, is it's sort of like a muscle, the more we use it, the more we get familiar with what it's like. And that doesn't mean that we won't have massive shifts or changes, but it's something that we can gain comfort in being uncomfortable. The challenge that many of us have in our current situations, is that comfort has become more of our idol in our God, than the pursuit of that assignment. And we kind of, we kind of believe that God must be doing okay with what we're, what we're performing and our work and all that kind of stuff. If we can have some visible tangible bank account, car house, big screen TVs, whatever, you know, then Oh, look, I'm being blessed. And anyway, because of our history, I could tell you, it's just I don't know that I agree with that. No, listen, I don't he doesn't love poverty. It's not as if, you know, we're supposed to live in squalor anything. That's not the case. It's just that we're not supposed to get Matthew 633 mixed up. We don't seek first those things. And in His Kingdom in righteous snow, the name of God righteousness, yes. Things.

Kay Helm  47:48

Yes. Get it in the right order. Okay, we've talked about coaching, we've talked about habits to talk about business ministry mindset, basically, what is a book you recommend,

Tim  48:00

A book that I would well, other than one I'm about to write, it's about to be published. A time to act. It'll be out soon keep keep an eye out for it. You know, it's a novel, by the way. But I'll give two books that are in the same genre that had a big impact on me. augmon o is a writer that's written somewhat modern day parables. His first book, probably most popular is the greatest salesman in the world. It sounds like business. It has a spiritual tone, powerful book. He wrote about 17 books, all of them, he was working towards writing the story of Christ. All of them were spin off of the research that he did. But the greatest salesman in the world is a great book to read. If people haven't read it. Be careful. If you open it up at about 10 3011 at night, you'll close it and be finished around 2:33am. so be cautious, awesome book. But what I want to do is give a bonus if I can. To me, his best writing book, the one that'll really really dig deep inside Eunice one that I'm kind of modeling. Some things that I'm doing with what I'm writing, because it had such a big impact on me, is a book called The choice. It's just simply the choice. And I think it was well into his writing career 10 1112 books and or something like that. Those two books, if someone reads those books, it will have a huge impact on their life. And then what to do is to get you prepared for my book that will be coming out soon. All right. Well,

Kay Helm  49:37

tell us about your book.

Tim  49:38

All right. My book is what I like to call a modern day parable. And it is fiction. But it's fiction with a purpose is kind of the way I like to term it. It has some learning points and has teaching, but it is a fictional story about a gentleman that I'll go ahead and give away the opening. It opened up with him attempting suicide attempting to take his life because of some situations and things that have occurred in his life. And the the remainder of the book is primarily him going on a journey to, to really gain clarity on what his purpose in assignment is in life. And so it really has some timeless principles, and it has some very, I think, cool twist and all to it. So I had I had a lot of fun with it. I've never really considered I mean, usually a leadership guy like me, I'd be writing leadership book, which I kind of have those me also but so a novel was my first, my first my first book that I wrote,

Kay Helm  50:42

Oh, that's awesome. Congratulations. When when is that coming out?

Tim  50:46

You know, that's a great question. It's completed manuscripts done. I've had my wife do a read through, I actually had a coach to kind of help me with the writing. And now I'm kind of in the process of deciding hell, I'll bring it to the public. We've self published books in the past. And we may do that. But for some reason, I've had hesitations, maybe I should talk to somebody about I'm not sure if anyone is praying right now. And they have a word for me. I'm open to it.

Kay Helm  51:13

Awesome.

Tim  51:14

Great. So anyway, it's finished, though. It's ready.

Kay Helm  51:16

Yeah, that's great. Okay, well, how can we find you and connect with you?

Tim  51:21

Yeah, the best place that people can find me is probably via our podcast website, seek, go create. It's those three words, we've used a few of them during the podcast if you if you can kind of weave in that but seek go create.com it's, it's where you can go learn more about our podcasts. We're also have a YouTube channel, but just go to C go create.com. There's information on me, you could reach out to my assistant and contact me if you need to, or check out our podcast. We love what we're doing over there. We're in a similar genre. I believe we're primarily business entrepreneurship with some ministry and and we're redefining success over there in ministry, leadership in business.

Kay Helm  52:03

Absolutely. And as I started listening to your podcast, I that was one of the things I thought actually when I started listening was Wow, this is the same audience that I'm so if you enjoy life admission podcast, you're going to enjoy. See, go create. Tim, thank you so much for being with us today. And for adding so much to give us a lot to chew on.

Tim  52:25

Thank you, Kay, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the conversation.

Kay Helm  52:28

I particularly like what Tim had to say about spending time with God and finding our assignment. We talk a lot about calling and purpose here. And the assignment is such an important element that we don't want to miss. And the only way to get that is to go to the Father. It's so easy to think that we've got it figured out and just run on ahead with our own our own knowledge that we have in our own little minds. But as Tim reminded us, we've got to get that daily assignment. As always, the show notes are at lifeandmission.com And we have all the links that Tim mentioned in the show. 

If you enjoy life and mission, can you help us out by leaving a review? I'd really like to thank Jodi. She reviewed the show this last week, and she said, “Life and Mission podcast is full of great guest interviews. Host Kay Helm highlights voices who will inspire and provoke us all to greater things. Kay's engaging and kind,” Thank you, Jodi. “and covers topics that point us to finding your own calling and purpose - who God created us to be. Take a listen.” And Jodi says her favorite episode is Write That Book, with Joyce Glass. That was a good one. Thank you, Jodi. I really appreciate your kind words. 

Hey, I'll have a new episode for you in two weeks. Until then, this is the life and mission podcast. Find your voice. Tell your story. Change the world.